


clever little thief

by LovelyLessie



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>regarding things stolen by karliah (and, though she doesn't know it, by gallus)</p>
            </blockquote>





	clever little thief

The first thing Karliah steals from Gallus is his coin purse, and he doesn’t notice it’s gone until he goes to buy a drink and can’t find it. The look on his face is well worth her trouble, and worth paying for his drink out of her own pocket to make up for it.

"Aren’t you a clever thing," he says to her while they share drinks on opposite sides of the table, and he’s smiling faintly. "Your mother taught you well."

She feels herself blushing and looks down. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and bites her lip to hide a smile.

After that she steals a few minutes of his time whenever she can, to ask questions, to give news, simply to chat if she has something to say. He’s a busy man, so often he does not have time to spare, but she steals glances at him across the cistern while he isn’t watching her, and looks away quickly when he lifts his head.

As she’s leaving one evening to retire to bed, she stops at his desk, where he’s poring over plans and scrawling notes on them in a script she can’t read. “I’m going home,” she says. “Are you coming too?”

"Not until later," he says, looking up at her with a weary smile. "I’ll finish this first, I think, and be along afterwards."

"Alright," she says. "I expect I’ll see you in the morning then."

She leans across the desk to steal a kiss before turning and hurrying out of the cistern before anyone sees how flushed her cheeks are.

Back home in the hall outside of Riften, she lays down in the dark, smiling up at the cavern ceiling, drawing her arms around herself, and as she drifts off to sleep it occurs to her that, until now, she didn’t even notice he’d stolen her heart.


End file.
